Bits and Bobs
by Jazoriah
Summary: A collection of drabbles. Will vary in genre and pairing, depending on how angsty I'm feeling at the time. Chapter Four: The last moments of a boggart, trapped in the fears of others.
1. Obsession

For the longest time he was the one you hated. The one you mocked, the one you fought. Every memory that makes you flush with anger and clench your fists until the nails cut through your skin contains him. Potter laughing, Potter flying. Potter saving the day for the sixty-seventh time.

He doesn't know it, but his marks are all over your body. A deep nick that never quite healed from the dueling club. A gash from a quidditch match when he blocked your dive and sent you out of control. Then there is the burn curling its way up your leg, commemorating the day he saved you from the flames.

You shake your head, because maybe if you make the world tremble hard enough it will right itself again, and you can simply hate that obnoxious, heroic twat. Like you should.

But the shaking stops and nothing has changed.

Your life, your mind is no longer yours.

It is his.


	2. Blessed

Sirius held the struggling baby with all the assurance of a startled goat. Harry arched his back again and nearly toppled over his captor's shoulder.

"James!" bellowed Sirius. "Take your little hellion before he breaks himself!"

James chuckled, jogging over to his struggling friend and relieving him of the child. Harry immediately settled, curling smugly into his father's chest.

"He's just winding you up, Padfoot," said James with a smile. "He thinks it's a game."

"Ruddy evil game if you ask me," grumbled Sirius, just as Lily, Remus and Peter arrived.

Lily gave her husband and son each a kiss. She stroked the boy's cheek, and said in a soft voice, "Sorry darling. No strawberries today. The shop sold out."

Harry pouted a little at his mother, and snuggled further into his father's chest.

"Sorry, son," laughed James. "You can't have everything."

Thinking on this, he looked to his wife, and then to his three best friends laughing in the corner. He held his precious child a little tighter and smiled.

"But you can have a lot."


	3. Ghost

George never did recover from losing his brother.

It wasn't that he was always sad; He wasn't. He laughed with Ginny and played with Teddy and sang off-key sea shanties at Christmas parties. He cried only rarely and he kept himself healthy.

But it was like he was always waiting for something to be said – something more than what came out of his own mouth that would give the rest of it meaning. It was strange that after all the years he spent synchronised with his twin, he found he could no longer guess at what Fred would have said, how he would have reacted.

Sometimes he caught a glimpse of his reflection without warning and for a split second he believed that his brother's ghost had returned to him. He would stiffen, and blink, and hate himself for the pure joy that burst within him for that one moment of delusion.

Now, staring at himself in the mirror, George knew that the man he saw truly was a ghost. It just wasn't his brother.

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><p><strong>AN:** I don't think anyone could ever do justice to the pain of this particular loss. That's why I admire Rowling so much for understating it in the book. A single bowed head and it was perfect.

Let me know what you think!


	4. What You Fear the Most

In the dark, he undulated, flowing between walls, slaloming from existence to non-existence and back in a slow, contented slide. He felt the solitude like freedom and keened softly, unheard by any creature. The sound, or non-sound, reverberated through his haven.

The insubstantial thing had no name in the language of men. He lived unobserved and undefined, free from any need of identity. In his tightly bound sanctuary, he languished.

A soft, metallic _click_ sounded in the dark, and the roiling mass halted, drawing in on himself in confusion. One of the walls shifted, gliding ever so slightly outwards, on an angle, showing itself not to be a wall at all.

The door inched slowly outwards along the frame, coming to the very edge of the oaken wood. It stopped, still for a single heartbeat, and the massless non-thing quivered with fear and anticipation.

Then the door was thrown open and harsh light lanced into the small space, piercing into the creature and forcing the non-matter to shift and contort, solidifying into a new form, an unfamiliar form. Long legs unfolded from either side and a thousand colours bombarded him through his newborn eyes.

His change had occurred too fast for any human to observe, and he felt his entire being throb with the strain of tangible existence. Before him stood a strange, pale creature, shorter than his own many-legged form, and wide-eyed with fear.

Instinct reared up and the creature scuttled forward, snapping its pincers menacingly.

The intruder had to go. It had to leave. This form was wrong. He needed the dark, his dark. He needed the alone back. He needed to breathe, roll, flow.

The trespasser reared back, scrambling to pull a long piece of wood from the folds of its strange skin. Compelled by blind instinct, the spider-that-was-not-a-spider scuttled forward, and the intruder fell to the ground with a shout.

Its call was answered from elsewhere in the room, this voice higher – another bipedal creature with layers of coloured skins and a stick of wood pointed aggressively toward him. He turned his many eyes on it and immediately felt his legs draw in on themselves. The course hair on his body retreated and his skin shifted. A loud _crack_ sounded through the room and he found himself standing on two legs, level with the new creature.

He had no thought beyond sending these invaders away. They were in his space, in his _mind_, and he bared his sharp fangs at her, feeling blood that did not flow settling in his stomach. But that was wrong. He was not meant for blood, or fangs, or stomachs. He was not meant to _be_.

The new creature lifted the little wooden stick and let out a strange call.

"Riddikulus!"

The not-thing blinked in confusion as his fangs slipped harmlessly out of his mouth, replaced by obtrusive buckteeth. He felt matter bleed out of his skull and solidify into two tall, fluffy ears. He shook his head, feeling even more wrong than before, and the foreign ears flapped comically around his pale face.

The intruders were standing taller than before, triumphant. Their lips spiked upwards, and a high, guffawing sound rent the relative quiet apart.

The not-thing felt the sound plunge into his body, curling around his unreal bones and unravelling them. It flowed into his skin and his veins and burned, building up a bizarre, vibrating energy. He could feel it in his ears that weren't real and his brain that wasn't his. He felt himself pull taught, stretched in every atom.

And so it was that the sound of laughter was cut off by a loud _crack_, and the not-thing became no thing at all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I always love those pieces that use the perspectives of characters you never really thought of as HAVING a perspective.

What do you think? I know it's a bit weird, especially since I gave a metaphysical entity a gender, but it's experimental and I'd love to hear your feedback.


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